Digital Marketing Agency Discusses Best Practices for YouTube Ad Creation

Despite television consumption standing at an all-time low, video content is still gaining popularity – it has just shifted form. YouTube has been dominating the video-sharing platform since its birth in 2005. Today, 73% of American adults are frequenting YouTube. Within just the 18-24-year-old age group, that number rises to a staggering 94%. Given such high statistics, there’s no reason advertisers shouldn’t be taking advantage of this platform. Integrating a YouTube ad into your portfolio will provide a new, dynamic means of advertising while reaching your target market across all age ranges.

When rendering your next video advertisement, keep these key tips in mind:

Choose the right ad format:

YouTube offers two advertisement formats to choose from: in-stream and in-display. TrueView in-stream ads are skippable after 5 seconds, and appear at no cost until the 30 second mark. Non-skippable in-stream ads will require the viewer to watch until completion, and the advertiser must pay for every impression. Both ad formats will play either before or during a video stream.

In-display ads are a bit more seamless to the viewer’s YouTube experience. This form of YouTube ad displays at the top of the suggested video column, or at the beginning of organic search listings. YouTube also provides the option to overlay these ads onto a video, so the user’s experience is not interrupted, but the advertisement is still within sight.

Optimizing targeting options:

When crafting your campaign, you want to be as precise as possible in your targeting measures. YouTube offers a great assortment of targeting methods to ensure your message is reaching the ideal consumer. By layering on different demographics and interests to custom affinity audiences, you can create a tailored YouTube ad that your target market would be most receptive to.

Create engaging content:

In most cases, viewers will be given the option to skip a TrueView In-Stream ad after 5 seconds. However, after watching a YouTube ad to completion, that person is 23 times more likely to complete an action. Therefore, crafting meaningful and engaging content for your YouTube ad is vital to your campaign success. Peak your viewer’s interest right off the bat with exciting visuals and enticing audio. Doing so will increase your chances of holding a user’s attention until the very end of your ad.

Interactive elements:

Once you’ve gained viewers’ attention, provide them with a seamless transition between the video ad and final action item. YouTube gives you the option to add a call-to-action to your ads, making it easy for consumers to click straight to the relevant product or direct them to a purchase or download. Because in-display ads do not provide a final landing page, displaying a CTA is vital to campaign success.

Take advantage of video remarketing:

It is important to reinforce your message after your initial interaction with a viewer. You can opt to remarket your YouTube ad to users who have done anything from viewed or subscribed to a channel to simply interacting with an in-stream ad. These ads will appear on the right-hand side of a video streaming display. Remarketing gives advertisers the chance to grab a user’s interest once more, and ultimately convert their impression into an action.

YouTube offers an expansive way to interact with your target audience on a media platform that many are now frequenting. Contact the social media experts at Kraus Marketing to help put your advertising budget to good use by integrating these practices into your next video campaign!